Boardwalk Empire Recap: “Bone for Tuna”

The following recap contains spoilers

by Veronique Medrano:

Boardwalk Empire Recap: “Bone for Tuna”
Original Air Date (HBO): Sunday September 30, 2012
Season 2 Episode 3

Bone for Tuna? You may be scratching your head wondering, “WTF!?! Does that have to do with this, and why does every episode title make me hungry?” I’m sure the opening of this episode made you feel the same way, but alas this isn’t the Food Network, and all the references to food are an allusion to something greater. So without further ado, I’m excited to jump feet first into this week’s recap. Just a friendly reminder: This recap covers the characters you should pay attention to, and while other recaps give you the rundown of the episode from start to finish, I want to cut the fluff and take you to the nougaty center. So before we enter let me remind everyone, just so ya won’t forget, that the following recap contains spoilers (i.e: info about the episode that you may not want to know before watching).

Dream Sequence. Yup, that is the spoiler right off the get go. Nucky is headed down a pretty dark, and muddy path. It is interesting to see this side of him after two episodes of ‘aloofness’ and devil-may-care attitude, but the beginning of this episode colors what we will see throughout the series. Now just a little refresher, in Episode 2: Spaghetti & Coffee, Nucky tells Billy Kent a childhood story of how he would cook for his siblings and his mother so that she would have a break from her constant workload. This comes to the forefront this episode, but instead of his brother he sees a young Jimmy Darmody standing in front of him, then he is holding a frying pan with bacon, then he is holding a smoking gun and Jimmy’s dead body lies in front of his desk.

Nucky wakes up a bit worse for wear, and we discover in his interactions with others that he has not been sleeping well as of late due to these weird dreams. Of course whenever Nucky feels down and out, he runs to Billie Kent, who is not answering his phone calls. He seems a bit desperate for her company this episode, so much so that it’s pitiful to watch. Furthermore, we realize after these last two episodes that he has been using Billie as a crutch to escape from the reality of his position and the sacrifices he must make to live this life. Nucky’s delusion will lead him to make some obvious mistakes in his dealings with our top character to follow: Gyp Rosetti.

The man holds up liquor shipments from going through Tabor Heights, and instead of pussy footin’ around, Nucky deals with the situation head on before it gets out of hand. (insert exasperated sigh here) Of course what is surprising is that it works, and Nucky makes amends with his flustered business associate. He offers Rosetti a one month supply of booze to keep his head above water, and then it’s up to him to figure out other arrangements or wait it out like everyone else, and then just to make sure everything is peachy keen between them he invites him to dinner in Atlantic City. Of course, Gyp goes back to the hot-head he is, and as Nucky so eloquently puts it Gyp can, “find an insult in a bouquet of roses”.

The last character I want to touch on in-depth is Richard Harrow. Oh sweet Richie! I found his contribution to this week’s episode to be one of the funniest this season. After killing Manny Horvitz, due to Angela Darmody’s death, he wanted to send a message to all those implicated they’d be next if something like this ever happened again. Well Mickey, being the dumb putz that he is, decides to use Horvitz’s death as a way to get street cred and more money from his buyers. This town is so damn small that it shouldn’t surprise you as to how quickly this news gets back to Richard, and how unhappy he is that someone else is getting the credit for his kill.  He waits for Mickey, and catches him with his pants around his ankles stuttering for mercy. Richard confesses to Nucky that he was the one who killed Manny, and rats out Mickey for his underhanded dealings due to Manny’s death.The best thing that comes out of this interaction between Nucky & Richard is the following question,

“Do you think of who you kill?”-Nucky

“You know the answer to that.”-Richard.

This gives us a glimpse at the mental turmoil caused by Jimmy’s death that we’ll be watching for the rest of the season. Oh but wait, why the heck is the title for this week’s episode “Bone for Tuna”? Ah, about that…well, as I said before Nucky is so eager for his escape from the visions of Jimmy that he makes his way to Billie Kent’s boudoir. On the other side of the shore, our wonderful little hothead Gyp Rosetti is waiting for Nucky to deliver the goods promised him. Instead of Nucky, he encounters an errand boy who delivers the goods and before he leaves says that Nucky wanted to him to deliver a message, “Bon fortuna.(Good Luck)” or as we see on the notepad, and his diction, “Bone for Tuna”. As Gyp walks towards his men, our little kettle is about to explode at the supposed affront to his person and says the one line that I feel will annoy us all this season, “What the f**k is life if it’s not personal!” He stays in Tabor Heights due to his rage, and fries up a sheriff to commemorate his delay.

After 3 episodes worth of introduction and setting up for this brawl between the two factions, a turf war is finally upon us?

Check out the preview for the upcoming episode and place your bets on who will be leaving our midst?

I say Eli (Nucky’s brother).